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' 59th Conguess, < SENATE. j Document 

2d Session. \ \ No. 189. 



COLLEGES FOR THE BENEFIT OF AGRICULTURE AND THE 

•MECHANIC ARTS. 



Air. Nelson presented the following 

STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OP SENATE BILL NO. 6680, ENTITLED 
"A BILL TO PROVIDE FOR AN INCREASED ANNUAL APPRO- 
PRIATION FOR THE COLLEGES FOR THE BENEFIT OF AGRI- 
CULTURE AND THE MECHANIC ARTS, ESTABLISHED AND 
MAINTAINED UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THE ACT OF CON- 
GRESS APPROVED JULY 2, 1862, AND THE ACT OF CONGRESS 
APPROVED AUGUST 30, 1890." 



January 7, 1907. — Referred to the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and ordered 

to be printed. 



A BILL To provide for an increased annual'appropriation for the colleges for the benefit of agriculture 
and t'.ie mechanic arts, established and maintained under the provisions of the act of Congress 
approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and the act of Congress approved August 
thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America 
in Congress assembled, That there shall be, and hereby is, annually appropriated, out of 
any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be paid as hereinafter pro- 
vided, to each State and Territory for the more complete endowment and maintenance 
of agricultural colleges now established, or which may hereafter be established, in 
accordance with the act of Congress approved July second, eighteen hundred and 
sixty-two, and the act of Congress approved August thirtieth, eighteen hundred and 
ninety, the sum of five thousand dollars, in addition to the sums named in the said 
act, for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and eight, and an 
annual increase of the amount of such appropriation thereafter for four years by an 
additional sum of five thousand dollars over the preceding year, and the annual sum 
to be paid thereafter to each State and Territory shall be fifty thousand dollars, to 
be applied only for the purposes of the agricultural colleges as defined and limited 
in the act of Congress approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and 
the act of Congress approved August thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety. 

Sec. 2. That the sum hereby appropriated to the States and Territories for the 
further endowment and support of the colleges shall be paid by, to, and in the man- 
ner prescribed by the act of Congress approved August thirtieth, eighteen hundred 
and ninety, entitled "An act to apply a portion of the proceeds of the public lands 
to the more complete endowment and support of the colleges for the benefit of agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts established under the provisions of the act of Congress 
approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two," and the expenditure of the 
said money shall be governed in all respects by the provisions of the said act of Con- 
gress approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and the said act of Con- 
gress approved August thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety: Promded, That said 
colleges may use a portion of this money for providing courses for the special prep- 
aration of instructors for teaching the elements of agriculture and the mechanic arts. 

Sec. 3. That Congress may at any time amend, suspend, or repeal any or all of the 
provisions of this act. 



COLLEGES EUR AGRICULTURE AiND MECHANIC ARTS. 



■^v* 



The purpose of this bill is to enlarge the work of the 65 State 
colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts. 

These colleges were organized under Congressional initiative in 1S62. 
Each State whs offered an endowment of public lands if it would 
enter upon the task of inaugurating education in the industries. This 
land was apportioned to the total number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives, each respective State to receive as many times 30,000 
acres as it had Senators and Representatives in Congress. Thus 
10,233,169 acres of land were given to the States for this purpose. 
This land has now nearly all been sold, and the invested endowment 
is $12,049,626, yielding an average annual income, which alone can 
be expended, of $721,492, an average of $15,031 for the land-grant 
colleges in each of the 48 States and Territories. 

In 1890 Congress, in the second Morrill Act, supplemented this 
endowment by the appropriation of $25,000 for each State and 
Territory, thus providing each with the present average of $40,031 
per annum from the Federal Treasury, an annual total of $1,921,492. 

Under the provision of the acts named, each State was required to 
purchase lands and erect buildings from State funds. Lands, build- 
ings, and equipments valued at $45,836,731 , or an average of $954 ,932, 
have thus been provided by the respective States and Territories. 

The State colleges have become very useful and the States have 
added materially to their support. The total current expense funds 
thus supplied by the States aggregated for the year 1905 the sum of 
$3,048,422, an average of about $65,000 for each State. 

The sum supplied by the Federal Government and the sum sup- 
plied by the States for current expense or maintenance funds aggre- 
gated $4,969,914, an average of $103,540 for each State. Thus "the 
Federal Government supplies 38.6 per cent and the States 61.4 per 
cent of the support of these institutions. 

But in 1905 the colleges also received for buildings and other pur- 
poses from the States and other local sources (including fees) a total 
of $6,700,280, so that in reality the States contributed $9,748,702, 
which is nearly 83 per cent of the total income for educational pur- 
poses of the land-grant colleges. 

In 1887 Congress followed up its initiative of inducing the States 
to establish colleges for instruction in agriculture and the mechanic 
arts by taking the initiative in establishing a system of State agri- 
cultural experiment stations. That act appropriates annually to 
each State the sum of $15,000 for investigations in agriculture. 
Under the Adams Act of 1906 each State experiment station will 
soon receive from the Federal Government an additional sum of 
$1 5,000, making a total of $30,000 annually. The States supplement 
this sum with $540,467 of State funds, or $11,260 per State. 

Another movement has grown out of the establishment of agricul- 
tural colleges. Beginning in Minnesota in 1888 the States took the 
initiative in beginning the establishment of agricultural high schools 
or secondary schools devoted to education in farming and in home 
making for the young people of the farm. The first of these agricul- 
tural high schools were established on the grounds of the State col- 
leges, taldng the place of preparatory courses therefore found neces- 
sary in agricultural and other colleges for the farm youth who came 
from the irregular work of the rural schools. In more recent years the 
pronounced practical ,s.u.c.cess..of these secondary agricultural high 

: •"'-'*'•"• ,:: JAN 16 1907 • 



COLLEGES FOR AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS. 6 

schools has led to the establishment of a number of branch agricultural 
high schools. The States have established these schools, respectively, 
as follows: Districts of several counties: Minnesota, 2; Nebraska, 1; 
North Dakota, 1; South Dakota, 1; Oklahoma, 1; Maine, 1; Ala- 
bama, 9; Georgia, 11; New York, 1; Rhode Island, 1 : Washington, 1 ; 
a total of 30. 

Districts of one county: Wisconsin, 2; Kansas, 1: Tennessee, 1; 
Maryland, 1 ; a total of 5. 

It sterns probable that all States will follow Alabama and Georgia 
and establish systems of agricultural high schools, as each city has 
established public high schools, thus providing secondary schools for 
farmers as well as for city pupils. 

About the beginning of the new century a movement was begun in 
Ohio, Indiana, and other States to consolidate the one-room rural 
schools into larger and more efficient units. These schools are pro- 
vide;! with vans in which to haul the pupils to and from a large graded 
school, in a district now containing several of the little districts or cov- 
ering an area of about 25 square miles. There are now about 200 of 
these consolidated rural schools. These are gradually being made 
into real rural schools, by the introduction into their courses of study 
of instruction in agriculture and home economics. 

Since experiments have demonstrated that but little of instruction 
in agriculture and home economics can be successfully introduced into 
the isolated country school and that the elements of these subjects can 
be well taught in consolidated rural schools, there is no doubt that the 
rural school system will be generally reorganized. 

Since there are about 3,000 agricultural counties in tins country, 
the States, in order to supply one agricultural high school to each 
district of 10 counties, must establish, equip, and maintain 300 agri- 
cultural high schools. According to the census of 1900, there were 
838,000,000 acres in farms or 1,250,000 square miles. If the entire 
country were supplied there would be required 50,000 consolidated 
rural schools each to supply a district of 25 square miles. Smaller 
areas than 5 to. 15 counties for agricultural high schools, and smaller 
districts than 20 to 30 square miles for consolidated rural schools, 
would considerably increase the total cost. Besides being cheaper 
the larger districts, it is believed by many who know most concerning 
the experiments with these two classes of schools, provide a far more 
efficient system of education for farm youth than do the smaller 
districts. 

During the first three decades of the history of the State colleges of 
agriculture and the mechanics' arts their most rapid and popular 
development was along the lines of engineering and the mechanical 
industries. The teachers of these subjects found subject matter 
easily reducible to pedagogical form, and students found that the 
definite instruction and practice work along these lines gave good 
training and led to salaried positions in our rapidly developing 
manufacturing and transportation industries. Agriculture, on the 
other hand, at first afforded no sufficiently organized body of knowl- 
edge which teachers could present in a strong way to students, and 
there were few salaried positions open in agriculture. During the 
past decade, however, owing to the wisdom of Congress in passing the 
Hatch Act establishing State experiment stations and in appropriating 
money for research in the Federal Department of Agriculture, which 



4 COLLEGES FOR AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS. 

are rapidly adding to the body of knowledge, agricultural instruction 
has risen to a splendid status.' Not only have the subject matter and 
.the laboratory and practice work in agricultural courses been brought 
up to a position comparable with instruction in engineering, but there 
is a largely increased demand at good salaries for technical workers, 
as in departments of agriculture, experiment stations, agricultural 
schools, and agricultural newspapers. 

It may be said that at present we have a splendid start at a system 
of industrial education. To the State colleges of agriculture and 
mechanic arts we may largely attribute the development of instruc- 
tion in manual training and mechanic arts in our city schools. The 
capital city of Minnesota, one of the first to thoroughly equip a 
mechanic arts high school, is now but one of many examples of 
cities in which young men are prepared to aid in working up the 
industries of a city. Manual training, nature study, and school 
gardening in the city primary schools also are outgrowths of the 
work Congress inaugurated when it passed the first Morrill Act, 
establishing State colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts. 

These same colleges have also done the country a pronounced 
service in inaugurating instruction in home economics. This rela- 
tively inexpensive line of teaching is now rapidly extending from 
the State colleges into all other colleges, secondary schools, and 
primary schools wherever girls are taught separately or in coeducational 
institutions. This one line of instruction alone is of vastly greater 
value than the total cost to the nation and States of all these colleges. 

It is not too much to say that through the Morrill Act of 1862 
and subsequent acts Congress has wrought a revolution in American 
education as well as in American agriculture. The old educational 
ideals, growing out of the purely church schools, which even yet may 
be not far wrong in training ministers of the gospel, have slowly 
given way to the far broader ideals for a system of public education 
suited to the needs alike of workers, business men, home makers, 
technicians, and professionals. The new education, while retaining 
the high moral and ethical ideals of the old, combines with these 
substantial training in doing the things of everyday life. It develops 
at once the high ideals and the ability to succeed in carrying them 
out. It trains to think by thinking and it trains to do by doing. 
By broadening out the course of study early in the child's school 
life, allowing it to taste both of things literary and things practical, 
each pupil has a basis for judgment as to what line of activity he is 
best fitted to enjoy and in which he can best hope to compete with 
his fellows. This broadening out of the school curriculum provides 
students better selected to go forward into the various technical 
college courses, because intelligent finding of themselves is far better 
than being pushed into a given life's work by parental initiative. 
The land-grant act of 1862 did not merely establish a system of 
schools; it inaugurated a permanent system of education American 
in its ideals and in its results. Congress can not do too much to 
further recognize this fact and to help the States in completing the 
broadest kind of a system of public education, with the nonpublic 
schools so woven into the scheme as best to supplement it for ethical 
and religious training. 

These land-grant colleges have influenced the nonagri cultural 
industries to nearly as great a degree as they have improved agricul- 



COLLEGES FOR AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS. 5 

ture. The engineering courses in these colleges have supplied a large 
share of the men who have made it possible to develop our vast sys- 
tems of transportation and manufacturing and to erect our great 
cities. They have provided a large body of teachers of the science 
and technique of the industries and of home economics for the other 
schools. They are the forerunners of the city mechanic arts high 
school, and of the introduction of industrial and manual training sub- 
jects into the city graded schools. Our cities are coming rapidly to see 
that these schools are most useful in developing a strong class of 
technicians and artisans prepared to establish and man within their 
borders manufacturing industries and transportation enterprises. 
The engineering departments of our land-grant colleges at the top, 
city mechanic arts high schools in the middle, and the manual train- 
ing classes of primary graded schools at the base are being evolved 
into a system of ladders up which the mechanically inclined youth 
of our cities are learning to climb and from which they are bringing 
greater efficiency to our labor, artisan, and engineering classes. The 
degree to which we, as a nation, shall distance other nations in man- 
ufacture, if not indeed in the development of transportation and in 
the erection of cities, will in no small part depend upon the rounding 
out of the technical education of those who are to work in our me- 
chanical industries. The use of federal funds to enable the engineering 
departments of our land-grant colleges to lead onward and upward in 
this educational movement has in every way proved justifiable. 

The agricultural departments of our State colleges are recently 
having a most substantial development, and from them is springing 
a brood of agricultural high schools and a still larger brood of consoli- 
dated rural schools. In the 35 agricultural high schools and nearly 
200 township or consolidated schools in rural communities courses of 
study have been devised and used in which the general school sub- 
jects and the agricultural and home economics subjects are inter- 
woven and graded from the primary class throughout the entire eight 
3^ears of the rural school, the four years of the agricultural high school, 
and the four }^ears of the agricultural college. These courses have 
become so universally successful that even conservative educators of 
the old school acknowledge that the new education initiated by Con- 
gress in 1862 is destined to revolutionize country life and the rural 
industries. 

That the people are generally awakening to the value of educating 
the boy ancl girl who are to remain on our farms has recently been 
most emphatically proved in the State of Georgia. A law was passed 
last July appropriating about $66,000 annually for the support of an 
agricultural high school in each of the eleven Congressional districts 
of that progressive State, just now grandly rising from its industrial 
inundation of nearly half a century ago. This appropriation was 
given on condition that each locality securing one of these schools 
should provide a good school and experiment farm and suitable build- 
ings with which to start a school. Governor Terrell has just com- 
pleted a canvass of the State, and the towns and counties securing 
these schools have given the State an average of nearly 300 acres of 
land and several hundred thousands of dollars for buildings and 
equipment, altogether costing the individual contributors over 
$800,000. Secretary of Agriculture Wilson is quoted as asserting 
that "this marks a new era in Georgia," and that " Georgia will now 
lead the South into a new agriculture." 



6 COLLEGES FOR AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS. 

My own State, Minnesota, while I was a member of the regency of 
the university and agricultural college, organized the first original 
and still the leading American agricultural high school. We congrat- 
ulate Georgia on being the first to take advantage of this new plan to 
provide and fully equip institutions of this kind all over the State. 
Minnesota has recently started a second agricultural high school, and 
numerous other States have established one or two schools of this 
kind. Alabama has established a school of this class in each Con- 
gressional district, but they have not as yet received the necessary 
large equipment nor the current expense fund arranged for in Georgia. 

Ere long the governments of the world will have expended hundreds 
of millions of dollars in building up a body of knowledge of agriculture 
and home making. Selections from this body of practical facts 
woven in with the literary and general subject-matter of our rural 
school course will give life to these primar rural schools, which are 
not now apace with modern progress. Nothing short of the highly 
developed, so-called consolidated rural schools with specially trained 
teachers can take this rich and interesting technical education to all 
the boys and girls who live on the farm. This education so increases 
the productive capacity of farm youth that from this standpoint 
alone it will pay its own cost several times over — with better homes, 
better rural civilization, and a still more highly developed supply of 
surplus people to send to our cities as additional sources of profit. 
The welfare of the future fathers and mothers in our farm homes, as 
well as the welfare of our country as a whole, demands that our farm 
youth be better schooled both in technique and in general subjects. 

Nothing short of a system of State agricultural colleges to supply 
teachers for agricultural high schools, also technicians in other agri- 
cultural lines, and of an agricultural school for each group of 10 
counties, can supply the needed 50,000 teachers of agriculture and 
50,000 teachers of home economics for a system of consolidated rural 
schools. And nothing short of 65 agricultural colleges, 300 agricul- 
tural high schools, and 50,000 consolidated farm schools will supply 
our rural communities with a people educated to manage farms and 
farm homes. Congress started this line of education, and it can do 
no better work than to recognize that its initiative has made possible 
the organization of a complete system of education in agriculture 
and the city industries. The cost of discarding the little rural schools 
and erecting new, modern, large, central school buildings, of estab- 
lishing agricultural high schools, and the increased annual expense 
to the State and community of maintaining the necessary and impor- 
tant secondary and primary schools, will be large. Only the present 
great prosperity of the American people makes these changes possible. 

By aiding in supporting the college of agriculture and mechanics 
arts, the Federal Government will encourage every State to establish 
high schools for the boys who are to be farmers and mechanics and 
for girls who are to manage homes and for those who are to teach 
practical studies in the primary schools of city and country. This 
encouragement will not stop with high schools, but will greatly encour- 
age the broadening of the curriculum of our city primary graded 
schools and the development and consolidation of our rural schools, 
that the city and the rural industries and the home making may be 
encouraged, emphasized, and built up. 



COLLEGES FOR AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS. i 

The demands are constantly increasing for technical workers in the 
rapidly developing State and national departments of agriculture, in 
agricultural schools, in experiment stations, in the agricultural press, 
and in other public and private enterprises needing trained special- 
ists in the various branches of agriculture and home economics. 
The action of Congress in trebling the expenditures in the Federal 
Department of Agriculture in a decade is but one illustration of what 
the demands will become during the next decade. These colleges 
of agriculture are recruiting institutions where are trained the armj 
of industrial specialists who are to prepare our people to hold tLeir 
industrial supremacy in the world, and they are get tins; behind the 
task we are setting for them. Many of these colleges no longer have 
the money with which to hold their best men, who are sought by 
other lines of the work which have better financial support. 

It is now eighteen years since Congress increased the allotment for 
these colleges. As compared with the research and police sides of 
our splendid agricultural policy, these colleges have been neglected. 
These institutions have now created a demand that a systein of 
technical high schools and consolidated rural schools be established 
to carry technical training to all the people. The action of Minnesota, 
Ohio, Indiana, and other States indicates that soon there will be a 
widespread demand for teachers in these industrial subjects. The 
Federal department, the State experiment stations, which are multi- 
plying their branch stations, the rapidly growing agricultural press, 
and other public and private institutions are growing as never before. 
As it requires four years to produce college graduates, the colleges 
must anticipate the demand several years ahead. 

We have no institutions better adapted to build up true American 
citizenship than our agricultural and mechanical colleges, where 
literary, ethical, scientific, industrial, and military training are 
blended into a strong, sensible, inspirational scheme of education. 
Congress did wisely in establishing them, and as this great nation 
grows in power and in wealth it should further recognize them and 
build them up. 

Our State legislatures and our local communities have the burden 
of solving the problem of offering a practical education to every boy 
and girl in the land. Encouragement and material aid from Con- 
gress will call them afresh to their tasks. Because the Federal Gov- 
ernment has charge of the easy, indirect methods of taxation it secures 
much more of the people's wealth for public expenditure than do all 
the States combined. How can Congress better aid the States than 
by thus returning some of the people's money to be used in promoting 
and in better supporting the education of the nations workers? 



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